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Nico Rosberg set the pace in second practice for Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix, but Daniel Ricciardo resisted Lewis Hamilton and prevented a Mercedes one-two.

In a reversal of form from the morning session, championship leader Rosberg lapped nearly three tenths quicker than F1 title rival Hamilton during their qualifying simulations on the super-soft Pirelli tyre.

But Ricciardo sprang a surprise by splitting the pair with a 1m37.552s effort that placed his Red Bull within two tenths of a second of the leading Mercedes.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth fastest for Ferrari, over half a second adrift of Hamilton.

Max Verstappen was fifth in the second Red Bull, while Force India pair Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez, and McLaren-Honda duo Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, all lapped faster than Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, which rounded out the top 10.

Raikkonen complained about the handling of the rear end of his Ferrari, and went off during his qualifying simulation, so had to rely on a second effort completed on the same set of tyres, which was only fractionally quicker than he managed on the soft compound early in the session.

Carlos Sainz Jr was the last man to lap below 1m39s, ending up 11th quickest in the underpowered Toro Rosso.

That put them clear of Williams pairing Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, who were split by the second Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat.

Haas endured another difficult session at its home race, with Romain Grosjean only 18th fastest and team-mate Esteban Gutierrez 20th, behind Esteban Ocon’s Manor, which recovered well after an early spin into the gravel at Turn 17.

Grosjean complained that he could "barely drive the car", struggling particularly with the front end of his Haas.

Marcus Ericsson was 21st, over a second slower than team-mate Nasr, while Pascal Wehrlein ended up slowest of all runners, complaining of too much understeer in his Manor.

He returned to the track later and set improved times in the first and second sectors, but failed to complete the lap on each occasion so remained rooted to the bottom of the timesheet.

There was a brief red flag interruption just as the higher fuel long runs began, so marshals could clear some debris that fell from one of the Haas cars through the high-speed esses.

Gutierrez’s car appeared to shed more bits later on through the same section of the circuit, something that also occurred during a troubled morning session for the Haas team.

Lewis Hamilton edged Formula 1 title rival Nico Rosberg in first practice ahead of the United States Grand Prix as Mercedes started the weekend well clear of its rivals.

Hamilton finished 0.315s clear of Rosberg at Austin, posting a lap of 1m37.428s, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third quickest, but a further 1.6s adrift, albeit on the medium compound.

The leading times from Hamilton and Rosberg were set on Pirelli’s soft compound tyres, beating their early times on the super-soft as the track improved during the first 90 minutes of F1 running.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen set the early pace on soft tyres with a 1m42.738s before being deposed by Rosberg by 2.1s, with the championship leader the first to try the super-softs at the time.

Rosberg remained top for only a handful of minutes as Hamilton became the first to dip below the 1m40s mark with his first run on super-softs.

While Hamilton continued to lower the benchmark, just before the hour mark Rosberg then reclaimed top spot with a 1m37.743s on softs, but Hamilton produced a lap soon after that remained unbeaten.

Raikkonen finished fourth quickest, improving to a 1m39.407s ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, who recently confirmed he is Renault bound in 2017.

Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo were sixth and seventh best, the latter finishing 2.535s adrift on used mediums, with Sebastian Vettel down in seventh on softs.

At one stage Vettel ran wide at the penultimate corner, his Ferrari rattling over the rumble strips resulting in a piece of bodywork shaking loose, colliding with his right wing mirror in the process and dislodging it.

For the lap that followed Vettel drove with one hand as he used his left to stop the wing mirror from falling off.

Toro Rosso duo Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat completed the top 10, both 2.7s down and separated by just nine thousandths of a second on the super-soft compound, with the latter complaining of understeer.

On home soil for their team, Haas pair Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez finished 14th and 15th, 3.5s off the pace.

Their session ended in unusual fashion as both had to be wheeled back into the garage from the end of the pitlane where they had come to a stop.

There was an outing for two reserve drivers, with Force India’s Alfonso Celis Jr – in for Sergio Perez – four seconds down in 17th.

Nico Rosberg continued his perfect start to the 2016 Formula 1 season with his second Chinese Grand Prix victory to open up a 36-point cushion over Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

For his third win of a so far dominant campaign, Rosberg finished 37.7 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, with Daniil Kvyat on the podium in his Red Bull for the second time in his F1 career.

As for Hamilton, from the back of the grid after a MGU-H failure during the first qualifying session and subsequent power unit change overnight, the reigning champion could do no better than seventh.

But that’s only half the story of what was a chaotic race.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo took the lead into Turn 1 after beating polesitter Rosberg off the line from his own front-row position.

Behind the lead duo, Kimi Raikkonen locked up marginally at the first corner, forcing Ferrari team-mate Vettel to make a slightly evasive move.

But with Kvyat charging up the inside, Vettel manoeuvred his way back into his team-mate, sending the Finn off the track and into the pits for repairs.

Vettel fumed over the radio, describing Kvyat as "a madman" who had made a "suicidal" move and arguing with him after the race.

Hamilton had made up five places into Turn 1, but after running over a piece of Raikkonen’s wing, the Briton was then hit by Felipe Nasr and ended up with his own front wing lodged under his Mercedes.

That caused damage to the bib and leading edge of the floor, resulting in a loss of downforce and hampering Hamilton’s recovery.

Leader Ricciardo’s hopes were blown on lap three when, powering down the back straight and with Rosberg in tow, he sustained a puncture to his left-rear tyre caused by debris on the track.

Shredded rubber on that part of the circuit prompted a safety car, and brought Raikkonen and Hamilton back into contention at the rear of the pack.

During the five laps the safety car was on track, Hamilton made two stops for tyres, taking on super-softs for one lap, and then back to another set of softs, the compound on which he had started, giving him free choice of rubber for the rest of the race.

Once the safety car was released, behind leader Rosberg a number of key players were out of position, with Vettel 15th, Ricciardo 17th, Raikkonen 19th and Hamilton 21st.

What followed was a stroll for Rosberg, while those behind attempted to work out the best strategy and tyres for any given part of the race, with positions changing constantly from second downwards.

Kvyat ran second to Rosberg for much of the race, with Vettel using a brief hard-charging stint on super-softs to make progress through the traffic and catch him again.

They swapped places immediately after the final stops, where Ferrari put Vettel on softs and he was able to quickly pounce on the medium-shod Red Bull.

At one stage prior to his fourth stop after 21 laps Hamilton was running third as others pitted, but two further stops followed – for a total of five – dropping him down the order on both occasions.

He came back through to push Felipe Massa’s Williams for fourth, but was eventually passed by a flying Ricciardo and Raikkonen.

Ricciardo ultimately claimed fourth for the third successive race, with Raikkonen fifth, followed by Massa, Hamilton, Toro Rosso pair Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jr, with Valtteri Bottas completing the top 10.

Despite the numerous incidents, all 22 cars completed the race, with Jolyon Palmer for Renault the last of those to see the chequered flag.

Rosberg led the way through the first two segments of the session, but Hamilton leapt onto provisional pole during the first runs in Q3, which proved enough to take pole by 0.113s when neither improved later on.

Mercedes ended up with a substantial seven-tenth gap to the rest of the field, as Williams got the better of Ferrari to be best-of-the-rest at Silverstone.

The Grove outfit locked out the second row of the grid, with Felipe Massa improving on his second Q3 run to edge out team-mate Valtteri Bottas by less than a tenth.

Kimi Raikkonen outqualified Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel for only the second time this season by setting the fifth fastest time.

Vettel dropped time in the final sector on his first Q3 run and was then baulked by traffic on his final effort so failed to improve.

Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat edged out the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz Jr by just 0.013s to qualify seventh fastest, while team-mate Daniel Ricciardo wound up slowest of the top-10 runners after losing his best lap in Q3 to a track-limits offence and a late improvement on his single new-tyre run by the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.

The second revised VJM08 of Sergio Perez missed out on a chance to make the top-10 shootout after running wide at Copse on his best lap.

The Mexican ended up 11th fastest, fractionally clear of Romain Grosjean’s Lotus, until the Franco-Swiss had his best time deleted for a track limits offense at the final corner.

Fortunately for Grosjean, his second best lap was still good enough for 12th, ahead of a frustrated Max Verstappen.

The teenager complained vociferously about a lack of rear grip from his Toro Rosso throughout his qualifying session, which ended disappointingly after the STR10 showed strong form throughout free practice.

He was close to dropping out in Q1 after having his best time deleted for exceeding track limits at Copse, then struggled to 13th in Q2.

The second Lotus of Pastor Maldonado was penalised for track limits offenses in Q1 and Q2 and wound up 14th fastest overall, fractionally slower than Verstappen but over three tenths clear of Marcus Ericsson in the best of the two Sauber-Ferraris.

The Swede’s Sauber team-mate Felipe Nasr, the McLaren-Hondas of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, and both Manor Marussias filled the bottom five places on the timesheet.

Both Nasr and Alonso agonisingly missed the Q2 cut by less than a tenth of a second, thanks to Maldonado having his best time scrubbed for running off the track at Copse.

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in final practice for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone with Mercedes Formula 1 team-mate Nico Rosberg recovering from another gearbox issue to finish second.

The reigning world champion clocked a time of 1m32.917s on the medium tyre, 0.552 seconds clear of Rosberg, with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen third.

Rosberg, who has won three of the last four races, looked to have the measure of Hamilton on Friday when he topped the times in both sessions despite a hydraulics problem.

The German was confined to the garage for much of the final half of the Saturday morning session while Mercedes investigated a gearbox oil leak – but the team managed to get him back out in time to do a qualifying-simulation.

After completing an installation lap early in the session, Mercedes chose to sit in the garage for the opening 20 minutes while the track rubbered back in following overnight rain.

Rosberg was first to lay down a marker with a 1m34.436s on the hard tyres but Hamilton was able to pip the German by 0.037s.

Rosberg improved, clocking a 1m33.731s but again Hamilton responded, going four tenths quicker.

The Briton then waited until the final few minutes to do his low-fuel run on the mediums and promptly went quickest, with Rosberg slotting into second having failed to edge Hamilton in any of the three sectors.

Sebastian Vettel, who was one of a number of drivers who ran wide at Copse corner, was fourth, three tenths adrift of Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen.

Max Verstappen claimed Toro Rosso had the second-fastest car in terms of race pace behind Mercedes and proved it is pretty handy over one-lap, too, with the fifth fastest time, fractionally quicker than team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr in sixth.

The Williams duo of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, who admitted to struggling with tyre temperatures on one-lap runs on Friday, were seventh and eighth respectively.